near
Fort William in the
Port of Calcutta in 1735 The discovery and
archaeological study of
Chandraketugarh, north of Kolkata, provide evidence that the region in which the city stands has been inhabited for over two millennia. Kolkata or Kalikata in its earliest mentions, is described to be a village surrounded with jungle on the bank of river Ganga as a renowned port, commercial hub and a Hindu pilgrimage site for
Kalighat Temple. The first mention of the Kalikata village was found in
Bipradas Pipilai's
Manasa Vijay (1495), where he describes how
Chand Sadagar used to stop in Kalighat to worship
Goddess Kali during his path to trade voyage. Later Kalikata was also found to be mentioned in
Mukundaram Chakrabarti's
Chandimangal (1594),
Todar Mal's taxation-list in 1596 and Krishnaram Das's
Kalikamangal (1676–77). Kalighat was then considered a safe place for businessmen. They used to carry on trade through the Bhagirathi and took shelter there at night. Kolkata's
recorded history began in 1690 with the arrival of the English
East India Company, which was consolidating its trade business in Bengal.
Job Charnock is often regarded as the founder of the city; however, in response to a public petition, the
Calcutta High Court ruled in 2003 that the city does not have a founder. The area occupied by the present-day city encompassed three villages:
Kalikata,
Gobindapur and
Sutanuti. Kalikata was a fishing village, where a handful of merchants began their operations by building a factory; In 1712, the British completed the construction of
Fort William, located on the east bank of the Hooghly River to protect their trading factory. Facing frequent skirmishes with
French forces, the British began to upgrade their fortifications in 1756. The Nawab of Bengal,
Siraj-ud-Daulah, condemned the militarisation and tax evasion by the company. His warning went unheeded, and the Nawab attacked; his capture of Fort William led to the killings of several East India company officials in the
Black Hole of Calcutta. A force of Company soldiers (
sepoys) and British troops led by
Robert Clive recaptured the city the following year. Declared a
presidency city, Calcutta became the headquarters of the East India Company by 1773. In 1793, ruling power of the Nawabs were abolished, and East India company took complete control of the city and the province. In the early 19th century, the marshes surrounding the city were drained; the government area was laid out along the banks of the Hooghly River.
Richard Wellesley,
Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William between 1797 and 1805, was largely responsible for the development of the city and its public architecture. Throughout the late 18th and 19th century, the city was a centre of the East India Company's opium trade. A census in 1837 records the population of the city proper as 229,700, of which the British residents made up only 3,138. The same source says another 177,000 resided in the suburbs and neighbouring villages, making the entire population of greater Calcutta 406,700. in 1945 In 1864, a typhoon struck the city and killed about 60,000 in Kolkata. By the 1850s, Calcutta had two areas: White Town, which was primarily British and centred on
Chowringhee and
Dalhousie Square; and Black Town, mainly Indian and centred on North Calcutta. The city underwent rapid industrial growth starting in the early 1850s, especially in the textile and jute industries; this encouraged British companies to massively invest in infrastructure projects, which included telegraph connections and . The coalescence of British and Indian culture resulted in the emergence of a new
babu class of urbane Indians, whose members were often bureaucrats, professionals, newspaper readers, and Anglophiles; they usually belonged to upper-caste Hindu communities. In the 19th century, the
Bengal Renaissance brought about an increased sociocultural sophistication among city denizens. In 1883, Calcutta was host to the first national conference of the
Indian National Association, which was the first avowed nationalist organisation in India. The
partition of Bengal in 1905 along religious lines led to mass protests, making Calcutta a less hospitable place for the British. The capital was moved to New Delhi in 1911. Calcutta continued to be a centre for
revolutionary organisations associated with the
Indian independence movement. The city and its port were bombed several times by the
Japanese between 1942 and 1944, during
World War II. Millions starved to death during the
Bengal famine of 1943 (at the same time of the war) due to a combination of military, administrative, and natural factors.
Demands for the creation of a Muslim state led in 1946 to
an episode of communal violence that killed over 4,000. The
partition of India led to further clashes and a demographic shift—many Muslims left for
East Bengal (later
East Pakistan, present day
Bangladesh), while hundreds of thousands of Hindus fled into the city. During the 1960s and 1970s, severe power shortages, strikes and a violent
Marxist–
Maoist movement by groups known as the
Naxalites damaged much of the city's infrastructure, resulting in economic stagnation. During East Pakistan's secessionist
war of independence in 1971, the city was home to the
government-in-exile of Bangladesh. The
Eastern Command of the Indian military, which is based in Fort William, played a pivotal role in the
Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 and securing the
surrender of Pakistan. During the mid-1980s,
Mumbai (then called Bombay) overtook Kolkata as India's most populous city. In 1985, Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi dubbed Kolkata a "dying city" in light of its socio-political woes. In the period 1977–2011, West Bengal was governed from Kolkata by the
Left Front, which was dominated by the
Communist Party of India (CPM). It was the world's longest-serving democratically elected communist government, during which Kolkata was a key base for
Indian communism. The city's economic recovery gathered momentum after the 1990s, when
India began to institute pro-market reforms. Since 2000, the information technology (IT) services sector has revitalised Kolkata's stagnant economy. The city is also experiencing marked growth in its manufacturing base. In the
2011 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, Left Front was succeeded by the
Trinamool Congress. == Geography ==